to write the same. Westbrook was lost in defense and taking ill adviced shots all game long. OKC narrow the deficit to two or one points and then he dribbled the ball and shot a contested quick jumper. When there were rumors about the possibility of OKC trading Westbrook to Boston for Rajon Rondo I agreed it was the best solution. It is clear he doesn't want to be the beta dog in a team. With Ibaka's offensive progression and the fact that OKC played great basketball without him, I would take the phone again and call Ainge.

It must be cool to be Scott Brooks tho. Run no plays, use illogical rotations, but keep your job because your team has good players on it. Does anyone not think George Karl would be awesome for this team?

Brooks is highly over-rated coach. Barkley has been saying repeatedly that they need to get some production from other players like Perk and Tabo, but his offense has been throw the ball to durant and westbrook and get out of the way. which ever one is hot keep giving it to him. I love Perk in boston, but the way brooks plays him, they should just amnesty him and put in a Dleague player. And i like Tabo but he plays tabo way too much, I wonder what would have happened if they played Harden as a Starter. Brooks will always be outcoached by the great ones, they will adjust their lineups. Spolstra wasn't a good coach, but after getting outcoached by Carlisle, he has learned to adjust his lineups and maxamize other players. Brooks doesn't have the intelligence to maximize any other players

One: that was absolutely positively luck! He was falling out of bounds, Gasol happened to be there so being home they called foul expecting he'd miss it so they could give the Thunder a chance to win but he made it and it will forever go down in Kevin Durant lore.

Two: I think the Grizzlies have played an exceptional game and Tony Allen has to be, hands down, the best One on One defender in the NBA and it's not even close. Westbrook was reluctant to give KD the ball sometimes out of respect for Tony Allen.

Three: If the Grizzlies win this series and Heat fall to Brooklyn in second round, would anyone even watch the NBA Finals?

Memphis was really impressive tonight because everytime the thunder made a run they responded it. They are really tougth mentally and dave joerger is a great coach.
And what about beno udrih, he outplayed the entire thunder bench by himself.

Allen did a fantastic job denying Durant. Brought back memories of OKC vs. Dallas the year Dallas won it all when Marion singlehandedly blew up OKC's end of game offensive sets.

Also, Durant was weirdly quick to give the ball up when the game was on the line. He got it two or three times and passed it off without even taking a dribble. It was really odd. Looked like Memphis got in his head a bit.

I love Westbrook but that just won't do, he needs a coach who will actually clamp down on him when he goes into "I got this" mode and takes those pull-up jumpers. Go to the rim, kid.

And the Thunder need a coach that actually designs an offense. Imagine the season Durant would have had if he'd been run off of screens and actually got a few easy buckets in the halfcourt instead of having to create his own shot every time. One of the best individual seasons anyone would have ever had.They have two top-ten players + Ibaka, but their crunch time offense is just terrible, they just hand it to Durant or Westbrook and expect them to do something. You can hardly get mad at Russell for taking those bad shots if his coach does zero to get him easy buckets on O.

Definitely agree that Brooks' offensive sets have a lot of room for improvement. I think he's just an average coach that happens to have a very talented team at his disposal.

With that said, they did try to run Durant off screens down the stretch. He just struggled to get free coming off of them. Whoever was defending him (I think it was Allen) was all over him, and Durant tends to come off screens a little too wide, so it allowed Allen to stay with him.

Yeah but the screens they had him coming off of were just short, quick pushes to get him the ball for an iso on the top of the key. I mean floppy actions, baseline screens, stuff to actually get him open shots.

The Thunder have been reminding me a bit of those old Blazers teams with Clyde Drexler, Terry Porter, Buxk Williams, Jerome Kersey, and Kevin Duckworth. One of the best teams in the league that can't get it done in the end.

and if the Thunder keep falling short, the Big Three of Durant, Westbrook, and Serge might be compared to that all time great Big Three of Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, and Wilt Chamberlain. Tons of talent but no titles for the trio.

He takes bad shots and simply tries to do too much... The issue here, this wasn't the game he did that in.

Kevin Durant was getting locked up by Tony Allen. Simple as that... I wished Westbrook tried to take over sooner. Kevin 6'10 and couldn't post up a 6'4 Tony properly. I remember one play they tried to go to Kevin off a screen, but he couldn't get enough separation from Tony, so Westbrook didn't pass it to him. How many steals did Tony have that game by beating Kevin to the post pass? Or a pass off the screen? Even when Kevin shook free he threw up some bad shots... Like that air ball 3 he had. Or how Tony blocked him going up for a jumper in OT.

Look, I'm all for trying to get Westbrook to play within the team game, but OKC was dragging and couldn't get a decent shot. Russell going to the hole relentlessly helped them dramatically. KD wasn't doing it... I had to take my bias opinion out of it and totally look at the game without leaning towards a particular player..

KD didn't have a monster game; he even missed a crucial free-throw down the stretch. I get Westbrook is easy to blame, but I challenge you all to watch that game again possession by possession and pay attention to Westbrook and KD. I'm almost positive you'll see what I did. KD wasn't doing a good job getting away from Tony Allen and Westbrook didn't have any choice but to try to take over. His hustle plays were much needed.